Cayman Islands investment manager fired by Axiom
In a letter to investors of Axiom Legal Financing Fund from the Fund’s directors it announced the termination of investment manager Tangerine Investment Management.
The Tangerine Investment Management’s website is currently down saying “This website is currently undergoing an update. For enquiries, please contact [email protected]”
Previously a statement on the website of Tangerine Investment Management Ltd, which marketed the three-year-old, £117m UCIS fund, blamed the need to suspend subscriptions and redemptions last month on “adverse allegations promulgated” by OffshoreAlert.
The Tangerine IM website statement added “the fund’s directors have commissioned KPMG Grand Cayman to carry out “an independent review of operations”, and that Tangerine “is actively cooperating with that review”.
In announcing the suspension of redemptions last month, Ronan Guilfoyle and Graham Hampson, directors of JP SPC1, of which the Axiom LFF is a segregated portfolio, noted that even before the suspension, back in August, the Axiom LFF ‘s investment manager had been in “discussions with an FSA-regulated adviser…with a view to having it act in respect of the fund”, and that this new adviser was expected to “be engaged shortly”.
“The directors anticipate being in a position to provide information with respect to KPMG’s findings and an update on the status of the suspension to investors by the middle of November,” Guilfoyle and Hampson added.
The announcement on Thursday (15) that Tangerine Investments have been fired is carried on the offshoreAlert website: http://1My.r.mailjet.com/5mG62DNk/1MCxm7/fvfAD1/www.offshorealert.com/WorkArea/DownloadAsset.aspx
Also from David Marchant, Editor of Offshore Alert
Axiom Legal Financing Fund: Time for investors to take control
November 15, 2012 by David Marchant
In their most recent letter to investors dated November 14, Axiom Legal Financing Fund’s directors stated that an Extraordinary General Meeting will be held in December so that they can “present proposals regarding the continued management of the Fund” that they have received from “interested investment managers”, with the possibility of holding a second EGM in January, 2013 to discuss the same thing.
In doing this, the Fund’s directors continued to dangle the carrot in front of investors that this Fund is somehow salvageable. However, if KPMG has conducted a credible investigation, the directors must know by now that a massive fraud has been committed and that liquidation is inevitable. For example, Tangerine Investment Management hurriedly closed down its Cayman office on or around October 19 when senior officer Dr. Jason Corbett, removed all computers, documents and other material, i.e. incriminating evidence, and flew off with it to the U.K. and then Singapore, according to a source.
So why are Axiom’s directors wasting time by delaying the inevitable? Could they buying time so they and other offshore providers can come up with plausible excuses as to who they allowed such an obvious fraud to continue for so long? It sure looks that way to me.
The offshore world is full of cozy relationships and the last thing investors should want is for the inevitable liquidation of Axiom Legal Financing Fund to be controlled by the same people who are partly responsible for this mess in the first place.
It is time for investors to seize control of their own destiny, petition the Fund into liquidation and have their own liquidators appointed who will aggressively sue all of Axiom’s offshore service providers who are believed to be negligent, and go after the assets of insiders such as Timothy Schools, which are located in multiple countries.
I can recommend Ed Davis, an international fraud and asset recovery attorney who is based in Miami, Florida. I have known Ed for many years and I can vouch for his professionalism and integrity. By way of disclosure, Ed’s firm, Astigarraga Davis, is an annual sponsor of OffshoreAlert’s financial due diligence conferences and, from memory, I think they also subscribe to OffshoreAlert. Other than that, there is no financial relationship between him and me or his firm or mine, either directly or indirectly. I have no financial interest, directly or indirectly, in the outcome of any asset recovery attempt regarding Axiom. I am recommending Ed because I consider it to be in the interests of victims, who, in my experience, often waste a lot of time and money by hiring attorneys who are inexperienced and ill-qualified to chase assets across borders.
End
Also see this story posted also on Thursday.
Embattled legal fund fires investment manager, delays audit
Suspended legal fund appoints auditor KPMG to provide advisory services during an interim period.
By Donia O’Loughlin, FT Adviser
Axiom Legal Financing Fund, the investment vehicle undergoing an external review following press allegations, has cut ties with its Cayman Islands-based investment manager Tangerine Investment Management and appointed its auditor KPMG to provide interim advisory services.
As previously reported by FTAdviser, the £100m Axiom Legal Financing Fund is currently suspended due to “a significant number of redemption requests” being received by the fund for the 1 November 2012 and 1 December 2012 redemption dates.
Axiom had previously appointed KPMG to conduct an audit of the fund’s assets following a number of allegations.
The fund previously told investors KPMG would report back with findings on or before 16 November, but in a new letter to investors Axiom said this would be delayed as the auditors focus on their ”new engagement”.
The fund added that although it has received a draft report, it has been unable to obtain complete information from the auditors.
The latest letter to investors, dated 14 November and seen by FTAdviser, says that Axiom has “terminated the appointment of Tangerine Investment Management” and that it has had a “number of approaches” from interested investment managers, including one party suggested by Tangerine.
There is no explanation in the letter as to why Tangerine’s appointment has been terminated. In a previous letter seen by FTAdviser, the fund directors said they are in discussions with Tangerine over a proposal to appoint an FSA-regulated adviser to bring “additional support, oversight and transparency to the management of the fund’s portfolio”.
The letter said: “Since the potential adviser’s due diligence on the fund is well advanced, the investment manager anticipates that, subject to the agreement of the fund to the proposed changes, the new advisor will be engaged shortly.”
Axiom says KPMG’s role is to preserve the fund’s assets, to interact with a panel of law firms to determine their short-term funding requirements for the progression of cases and to gather proposals for the ongoing management of the fund.
At the fund’s extraordinary general meeting, due to be held in December, the directors will present proposals regarding the continued management of the fund. A second EGM may be held in January 2013.
The news follows the recent resignation of director Tim Schools, who stepped down shortly after the review was confirmed by the fund manager of the fund’s assets.
Mr Schools is separately under investigation by the Solicitors Regulation Authority in England in relation to alleged misconduct at ATM Solicitors, an English firm he sold last year.
The SRA has referred his case to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, where it will be heard in due course. The allegations are as yet unproven and Mr Schools denies any wrongdoing.
Tangerine Investment Management and Mr Schools could not be reached for comment.
For more on this story go to:
Also see iNews Cayman story posted on Nov 6 “Suspension of Axiom Legal Financing – 2 stories and a comment” at:
http://www.ieyenews.com/2012/11/suspension-of-axiom-legal-financing-2-stories-and-a-comment/
